Pioneering Women – Part 3 – What happened to the children?

Joel Johnson was the younger son of Mary Polly Wheeler and Samuel Johnson. He was born in 1857, the first of their children to be born after the move from Vermont. He married Sarah Nash around 1839 and in 1850 they were living in Burlington Township, Licking County, Ohio. Joel was a carpenter and they had 6 children. Sometime before 1856 they moved to Wayne County, Iowa and are listed on the state census that year. They now had 8 children. Both parents died within a few months of each other in 1857. 

I was curious about what happened to Mary’s grandchildren so I looked for them in the 1860 census. [Note to my grandchildren – these are you 1st cousins 6 times removed – that means you are 6 generations apart.]

Leona, 18, was married to Zephania Johns and still in Wayne County. By 1869 Leona was a widow with three children living in what is now Clark County, Washington. She married James Walker there on March 25th. He was an early Oregon pioneer, a veteran of the Rogue River Wars and a member of the Oregon militia during the Civil War. There are many accounts that James Walker and his family established a homestead near the landing just upstream from the cliffs of Cape Horn in 1844 and were the only settlers in the vicinity. However, that disregards records that place him in Oregon at that time.  It is likely that the family did not move to Skamania County until the early 1870's shortly before the birth of their daughter Anna Eugenia.  They were granted a land patent in 1876. Leona is buried in Cascade Cemetery in North Bonneville.

Walker homestead just north of the Cape Horn Trail

 

View from Cape Horn

Jane – would have been about 17 in 1860 – I have not found her.

Mariah, 15, was living with her sister Leona.  There is an Ancestry Tree (Grandma Gooch) that shows Mariah marrying Frederick Palmer in 1863 in Walla Walla, Washington.  Not long after that they moved to Shasta, California and raised 6 children.  Mariah died there in 1910.

Lemira, 14, was living with the John Diemer family, farmers with 5 children of their own.  There is a marriage record for Lemira Johnson marrying Albert Wright in 1865 in Wayne County, Iowa.  Further records for Albert and Lemira are in Licking County, Ohio.  However, her death certificate shows a last name of Wheeler…so here is a puzzle to solve.

Clark, 12, is living near Lemira.  He is staying with the William Boswell family.  I’m not sure what happened to him after that.

Thomas, 10, is probably living with the Henry Shell family.  There are a couple of possibilities in later census records, but the name is too common to know for sure without more research.

Ann, 8, appears to be living with the William George family in nearby Wright Township.  She is listed as adopted but retains the “Johnston” surname.  I don’t know what happened to her after that date.

Mary Polly, 6, was living with her Aunt Jane (her dad's sister), who had probably moved to Wayne County around the same time as her parents.  Jane was married to Frederick Messenger and they had at least 12 children.  In 1860 there were six sons still at home ranging in age from 11-19.  I hope she was spoiled…

Note about the Messenger family - Jane and Frederick Messenger married in Ohio in 1831 and moved to Iowa some 25 years later with most of their children.  At least 5 of those children kept going west to the Washington Territory to homestead land opened up by the territorial government.  John E. Messenger settled in Clark County as did his aunt Leona.  The others landed in Garfield County, which is in southeast Washington.  About ten years after her husband died, Jane followed her children west.  She would have been in her late 60’s.  She is buried in Kirby Bethel Cemetery in Garfield County, Washington.

Note about your direct line:

Joel and Jane had an older brother named Zalmon Johnson whose second wife was Susan Maxwell.  They would be your 5th great-grandparents.  

Zalmon Johnson - found on Ancestry.com

Their descendents took a more circuitous route to the northwest.  Born in 1805 in Vermont, Zalmon moved with his family to Ohio where he married twice and raised 9 children.  In mid-life he moved to Marshall County, Illinois.  His daughter Adeline married Miles Ward in 1866 and after a few years that family moved to Iowa and then Nebraska.  Their daughter Lois had been born in Illinois in 1869 and married Albert White in Iowa about 1889.  They lived in Nebraska for a while and that is where their daughter Dianitia was born in 1890.  By 1910 the family had moved to Jackson County, Texas.  Both Lois and Albert died there and are buried in Houston, Texas.

Front row: unknown child, Miles Ward, Adeline Johnson (Mrs Miles Ward), Lois (Ward) White, Albert Willis White 
Back row, unnamed family of Lois Ward - from White_Crumpton Family Tree on Ancestry.com

Not long after the move to Texas Dianitia married Bert Stark.  They had two daughters while living in Texas.  Their two sons were born in Clay County, Minnesota, but sometime after 1940 they moved to San Francisco.  One of those sons, Glenn, is your great-grandfather.